


Like Cars on a Cable

by hufflepirate



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-30
Updated: 2014-05-30
Packaged: 2018-01-27 15:49:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1716113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hufflepirate/pseuds/hufflepirate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on the song "Breathe (2 AM)" by Anna Nalick.  After the events of The Winter Soldier, Natasha goes off on her own to figure out who she is and who she wants to be in the future.  Luckily, she doesn't have to do it alone.  A few chance (and less-than-chance) encounters with friends and acquaintances help her through the process.</p><p>Each verse from the song is its own chapter, including the bridge.</p><p>(Formerly titled "No One Can Find The Rewind Button Now but I decided I liked this line better.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Winter Just Wasn't My Season - Maria Hill

_2 AM and she calls me 'cause I'm still awake,_

_"Can you help me unravel my latest mistake?_

_I don't love him. Winter just wasn't my season"_

_Yeah we walk through the doors, so accusing their eyes_

_Like they have any right at all to criticize,_

_Hypocrites. You're all here for the very same reason._

* * *

Nat was in Nevada, trying to build a new identity. If there was anywhere she could be assured of anonymity, it was Las Vegas, and if the whirring and dinging of the slot machines in the hotel lobby got to her a little bit, then she'd just have to decide that "not a gambler" was part of her identity. She preferred other kinds of risk-taking.   _Real_  risk-taking, she thought, when she was particularly annoyed by the hordes of tourists drifting through and playing at being big shots. 

Technically, she was a tourist, too. Or at least, she was passing through. She had tried to decide this was home now, but it wasn't.  She missed DC. She missed plenty of other things too, things and people, but she couldn't dwell on it.  That was the past.  She was  _supposed_  to be figuring out the future.

But then the past called her on the phone at 2 AM and if she lived anywhere else, she might have been asleep. But she wasn't, she was sitting up in bed watching TV and listening to her neighbors fighting over how much of their savings they didn't have anymore, so she picked up the phone and looked at it. Maria Hill. Eyebrow raised, she muted the TV and answered it, not sure what Hill could possibly be calling about with SHIELD gone.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Nat.  How's Vegas treating you?"  Maria's voice sounded strained.

Nat laughed.  "Showing off, Maria?  Nice to know Stark's making use of your abilities.  Who else knows I'm here?"

Maria laughed, but it didn't sound like her heart was in it.  "Just me. Nick's out of the game, and I deleted the surveillance footage from Stark's system.  He's gone paranoid since that thing with the Mandarin. No more suits, but with this system, he could find all kinds of people, if he wanted to.  If he weren't so  _Tony_. He's just thinking about threats to him and Pepper, and everything else be damned."

Nat closed her eyes for a moment, letting relief wash over her.  "Good. Not that I don't appreciate the call, but I'd  _meant_  to get away from everyone for a while."

Maria sighed, "Yeah, I'm sorry about that. I just wasn't sure who else to call to get a voice on the phone that wasn't judging me."

Nat pulled her knees up to her chest. "Because of the SHIELD files we put out?"  She knew there was stuff in the files that Maria could be taking heat for.  There was stuff in the files they could  _all_  take a little heat for.  But it seemed awfully late for the problems to be starting now. "Everything you did, you did for the good of the planet.  We all did."

Maria was silent for a moment. "It's not so much what was in the files.  It was more what came before them."

Nat raised an eyebrow.  "Look, Maria, if I set loose anything more than the bare minimum of your personnel file, I didn't mean to-"

Maria interrupted, "No, it's not that. It's not even  _in_  my file."  She laughed, but didn't really sound amused.  "I joined SHIELD to save the world.  And I meant it that way.  It was what I'd always wanted.  By the time I was accepted into the SHIELD academy, I'd already been rejected by the CIA four times and the FBI twice.  But... I also used joining SHIELD to get out of some personal stuff I didn't want to deal with.  And now I'm dealing with it, and nobody seems to like me for it."

"Well," Nat suggested, "At least nobody wants to arrest you for the personal stuff you were trying to get out of."

Maria laughed, a little more genuinely this time, "Yeah, I know.  I really do. This whole thing is just so ridiculous."

Nat rolled her eyes.  "Just tell me, Maria.  I haven't been combing those files or keeping tabs. Like I said, I wanted to get away. What happened?"

Maria took a deep breath on the other side of the phone.  "I joined the Air Force the day I turned 18, which I guess you probably know, and I left for basic training the day after my high school graduation.  But it wasn't really what I wanted, and it never had been. It was just a way to get out. I wanted to get away from my dad, but I didn't have the money to go to college and the Air Force seemed like the best way to escape.  But all I really wanted to do was join the CIA.  I didn't know about SHIELD yet, but I knew I wanted to save the world and I thought in the CIA I'd be more likely to do that without dying for it, which seems a little ridiculous now that I've been in collapsing buildings and crashing helicarriers, but, you know, hindsight's 20/20."

"I was 19 when they sent me to Afghanistan and scared out of my mind and I just kept applying, thinking maybe I could get out of my new mess that way.  But the CIA wouldn't take me because I had no college degree and a sealed juvie record - stole a car to get away from my dad when I was 16, but got caught - and neither would the FBI when I tried them.  By the time I was 22 and I'd done nothing but feel scared and get turned down for 3 years, I was just losing it.  And there was this guy in my unit who made me feel more like I could handle it, and I guess I just latched on to that, 'cause he made me feel like maybe I wasn't a failure and maybe I wasn't gonna die."

"I never loved him.  It was just a rough time for me.  It was the middle of February and I'd just gotten my third rejection from the CIA and my second from the FBI, and I guess that winter just wasn't my season. I'd started to think my time was never gonna come, so when he asked me to marry him, I said yes."

Nat raised an eyebrow.  Maria couldn't see it over the phone, and kept talking.

"We were planning the wedding when I made one more last-ditch effort to get into the CIA, and that fourth application must have pinged somewhere, because that's when I got the call from Nick Fury. He'd read my application and dug into my background and I guess he thought I could handle it even if nobody else did.  When he gave me the job, I just left.  I didn't even say goodbye, just got on Fury's helicopter and vanished.  'Cause I wasn't sure how to tell Jeremy I'd never really wanted to marry him, and I figured I'd never even heard of SHIELD, so it wasn't likely I'd see him again once I was in it.  And I thought maybe I'd send him a letter when I got settled, but I never did that, either.  I never spoke to him again."

Nat wasn't sure what Maria wanted her to say. "So when I released the files?"

"He found me." Maria explained, "He found me, and he showed up at Stark Tower wanting to talk to me, and he thought - I don't know what he thought, he thought I'd been dragged away unwillingly or forced to swear never to see him again or something.  He thought we were gonna get back together and get married and he said he'd been holding out waiting for me for a decade, but I'm not sure I believe him.  Either way, I told him the truth and he snapped.  I had to take him out.  Broke the heel on one of my favorite shoes doing it, too, which didn't help much of anything. But how they all walk around looking at me like suddenly I'm beneath them.  I can't stand it."

Nat nodded.  Maria couldn't see it.  She said "Ok."  She felt like that wasn't enough.  "So what are they judging you for?  Fighting in the office?  Breaking the guy's heart?"

Maria laughed, but it was a purely bitter sound. "There are a lot of former SHIELD agents working here.  Stark might be out of the game like the rest of us, but he won't turn a SHIELD agent away, and everybody knows it.  But now they're all talking like the only reason I joined was to get out of marrying Jeremy. I mean, you know how people get. I was second in command at SHIELD, and now I'm personnel here, so I'm the one who determined what jobs they all ended up with at Stark Industries and I guess it's an excuse to hate me even though they know I wasn't HYDRA.  Some of 'em wanted me to be.  I know that. But it's amazing how fast the ugly spread once they had something on me."

Nat sighed.  "Yeah.  Ugly's like that."

Maria sighed, too.  "I'd never have joined SHIELD to get out of a relationship. I was scared to tell him no, but I'd never have made such a big decision to avoid something I could stop with a hard conversation.  I've never been that person.  I was closer to it, when I was young, but I was never that person."

"No," Nat agreed, "You never were." She needed to say something comforting. It was her one great strength in personal relationships.  She was bad at sharing her feelings and bad at telling the truth and bad at a lot of things, but she knew when to say something comforting.  "Those people are just hypocrites.  I mean it.  We all joined up to get away from something.  Or we stuck with it to get away, or we were gonna join anyway and then used it to get away because we could.  And anybody who says differently is lying."

She wasn't sure if it was helpful, yet, so she kept talking, "I mean, I think it's pretty obvious what I was getting away from. The KGB, the Red Room, maybe just feeling like one of the bad guys.  Maybe all of it.  But it's not just us, either. They ought to look at their boss, for one.  Tony's given up being Iron Man, now, but we all know why he started.  He was running, too, same as you and me, 'cause he was guilty about having sold weapons that killed people.  And Clint ran away from the circus, if you didn't know that, which has  _got_  to be more ridiculous than skipping out on an engagement."

Maria chuckled, "There is that."

Nat took a breath and then continued, hoping she wasn't overstepping the bounds of what still felt like a new friendship with Steve as she tried to be supportive in her old friendship with Maria. "And if all that's not good enough for those idiots,  _Steve Rogers_  was running.  Steve perfect Rogers, Captain America himself, old-school ideal in the red, white, and blue, and you know he was running as well as I do.  So tell 'em to stick that in their pipes and smoke it.  Steve wanted orders to follow so he didn't have to deal with the future on his own.  I wanted to be good, Clint wanted to be a hero, Tony wanted to be... whatever Tony wanted, and you just took an opportunity when you saw one."

"Yeah," Maria agreed, "I did." She sounded a little better now. Without facial expressions to look at, Nat couldn't tell exactly what kind of better, but better. "I guess we just can't escape the past forever.  It always comes back. And even if it doesn't turn up at your door, you've still got to deal with it eventually."

Nat looked down at her toes.  "Yeah, I guess you do."

"Don't get lost, Tasha." Maria said, "Or, I suppose it should be 'Talia, shouldn't it?"

Nat laughed, "I don't even know anymore, Maria. I feel like they're both in the past, now."

"Nat," Maria sounded serious, "I get that you have to do that.  You have to figure out who you are.  But don't get lost.  I've got less mess in my past to deal with than you do, and it still threw me.  I don't know if you're getting thrown, but don't get lost. You've been a lot of people, but that doesn't mean there's not a you in there.  All those people you were - they were you, just the same as the person you're building yourself up to be when you come back.  Deal with what you have to deal with, but don't get lost."

Nat laughed, "Is that what you called to tell me, Maria?"

Maria laughed, too.  "No.  I was being selfish.  I was calling so you could tell me I wasn’t a pathetic loser.  But I mean it, Black Widow.  It turns out that I'm not that little girl who couldn't tell a boy no anymore. It also turns out that I'm  _still_  that little girl who just wanted to save the world from behind the scenes somewhere. Deal with the past, but keep the stuff that's still you.  You're allowed to have both. Allowed to  _be_  both.  But it's almost 5:00 here and almost 3:00 there, and I probably ought to let you sleep. Just... come back when you're ready. We'll find a place for you. If the CIA won't take you, and after that last subcommittee hearing, they probably won't, then Stark will, or Steve'll find you a place.  Clint's worried about you and hasn't figured out what to do yet, but maybe you two can join the circus.  There'll be a place for you.  We'll make one."

"Yeah," Nat agreed. "Yeah, thanks."

"Thank  _you_." Maria replied.  Then, with a click, she was gone.

Nat put the phone down and leaned her head back against the headboard.  "Got to deal with it eventually, huh Maria?" she asked the empty room. "You're probably right."

She felt silly talking to nobody, so she stopped, just breathing for a moment.  In the morning, she'd sit down with her laptop and read her old SHIELD files. The ones she'd helped write and the ones she'd never seen before, the ones other people wrote when she was a KGB agent they were fighting and the ones she'd written herself in a hundred mission reports that were mostly true, the successes and the failures and the times she'd done right and the stuff that was just plain ugly.

Maria was right.  Nat had been trying to build a future without touching the past. But even starting over didn't really work like that, did it?  You couldn't leave it behind.

She couldn't quite face the files right now. Not with her neighbors finally quiet and the world dark outside behind the Vegas neon.  So she turned the light out and laid back down and for a while, she just breathed.  In the morning, she would stop pretending she could ignore the past.  There was no undoing it now, so she was just going to have to face it.

* * *

_Cause you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable_

_And life's like an hourglass, glued to the table_

_No one can find the rewind button, girl_

_So cradle your head in your hands_

_And breathe, just breathe_

_Oh breathe, just breathe_


	2. You Can Tell He's Been Down for a While - James "Bucky" Barnes

_In May he turned 21 on the base at Fort Bliss_

_"Just a Day," he said down to the flask in his fist_

_"Ain't been sober, since maybe October of last year"_

_Here in town you can tell he's been down for a while_

_But, my God, it's so beautiful when the boy smiles_

_Wanna hold him, maybe I'll just sing about it_

* * *

Nat almost laughed when she walked into what had become her usual Vegas dive bar to find the Winter Soldier sitting at the far end of the bar with his metal arm gleaming even in the dim overhead lights.  She'd made it through her old files, all of them, for the first time ever, and she thought that maybe having all that information out in the world, all the red in her ledger and all the blood on her hands, ought to make her feel bad about herself.  But she'd always been that person, she'd just been it in secret.  And now she was learning how to be herself without all the secrets. 

The first time she'd met the Winter Soldier, it had been in the part of her past she wasn't so proud of.  But the second time?  The longer she spent with the files, the more proud she'd been of everything she'd achieved since this whole superhero thing got started.

It was funny, given what both of them used to be, but Bucky was part of the piece of her life she was actually proud of.  He'd been part of letting everything go out into the world, part of sacrificing herself to save everything else.  And if he hadn't meant to be, then that was alright.  She'd been a lot of things she didn't mean to be.

She walked up to the bar and sat down next to him.  "Steve's looking for you, you know,” she said, in lieu of introducing herself.  He probably didn't remember her, and if he did, he probably didn't like the memories, much.  But he hadn't killed Steve when he had the chance, and that had to count for something.  She might not be as cold as she used to be, but she still wasn't above trading on Captain America's reputation.

"I came here to be alone," he answered, staring straight forward as if he were ignoring her.  She wasn't sure if he realized he'd said it in Russian or not.

"So did I," she answered, also in Russian.  "But here you are.  And Steve's looking for you.  I'd rather he didn't find me just yet."

The soldier laughed, a harsh bark that sounded almost painful.  "And I thought you attacked me in DC because you and he were friends."

"We are friends.  More or less.  I'm just not very good at it."

"Did you try to kill him?"  There was a faint edge of something in the Soldier's voice.  It might even have been amusement, which was interesting, given that she'd have expected him to sound sad about it.  Or sorry.

"I told him to kill _you_ ," she answered calmly.  The first time they'd met, he'd shot straight through her body to kill the guy behind her.  She didn't think he'd appreciate her trying to talk around the truth.

"He should have."  Still no sorrow.  Just... nothing.  He was masking his emotions, then.  Because that wasn't the kind of thing you said without feeling it, one way or another.  His face was half hidden by his long hair, and he still wasn't looking at her, so she flicked her eyes across his body for emotional cues instead.  Hunched shoulders, but not any more than when she'd walked up to him.  Arms on the bar, same as before, not moving.  He looked like he was trying to be small and nondescript, but it didn't tell her anything, other than what he'd already said.  He wanted to be overlooked.  But she hadn't overlooked him.

"I don't know," she answered, "It came out alright, didn't it?  You pulled him out of the Potomac and left him there instead of killing him."

"I did no such thing," something about his voice was terribly unserious beneath its deadpan consistency.  He knew it was a lie, and he knew she knew it.  "I'm dangerous," he continued, "I'm the villain.  You should leave this bar right now before I hurt you.  And Steve should leave me alone." He downed the rest of whatever it was he'd been drinking, and she wondered how long he'd been drinking it.  He was pretty closed off, but there was something relaxed there, too, something leading to almost-jokes, like he might be pretty far gone if he actually let go for a second.  She didn't know if it was the alcohol or the time away from HYDRA.

"You're a liar, Bucky Barnes."  She knew the name, because Steve had told it to her, but she hadn't quite worked it into her brain yet.  She still thought of him as the Winter Soldier.  But it didn't seem like the kind of title you used in a seedy bar when you wanted to build a rapport with somebody.

The Soldier flinched.  "I'm a lot of things.  But I'm not Bucky Barnes."  He half turned toward her for a second, a quick glance through his hair that didn't really tell her much, then growled, "I could tear the countertop off this bar with one hand without even getting off my stool."

Nat shrugged.  "And you can rip steering wheels out of cars, and you can tear the doors off airplanes.  But I think that would draw attention even in Vegas.  Is 'James' any better?"

The Soldier turned to look at her properly for the first time, an eyebrow raised in faint surprise.  His face was almost unreadable, not because it held no emotions, but because it held so many that she couldn't quite sort through them all.  The anger looked almost habitual, expression markers on his face without any real fire behind the eyes, which were sadder than she'd seen on anyone in a while.  The muscles of his face were tight, like he was in pain.  But then he smirked, and amusement seemed to win out again as he said, clearly joking this time, "Weapons don't have names."

Nat snorted, "Well, then it's a good thing you're a person, not a weapon.  'James' it is."

He raised an eyebrow.  "Is it?"

She shrugged again.  "Is now.  And like I said, Steve's looking for you.  So you might want to start getting used to it."

He turned away from her again.  "Steve's not gonna find me.  I've been a ghost for 70 years.  It's what I'm good at."

Nat laughed, "Oh, I don't know about that.  For somebody who pretends to want orders to follow, Steve's awfully hard to stop once he makes a decision.  And he's decided to find you."

The Soldier looked down at his drink and for the first time in their conversation, an edge of the pain on his face actually came out in his voice.  "Well, maybe if he'd followed orders, I'd have died the first time HYDRA had me and we wouldn't be having this conversation."

Nat glared at him.  "Maybe if he'd followed orders, Germany would have won the war and we'd be having it in German.  I've read your file.  It says you survived the fall because of what they'd already done to you that first time HYDRA had you.  Seems like maybe you'd have lived anyway."

"And maybe if they'd won, they'd have let me die before I could turn 97."

For once, she wasn't sure what to say.  She couldn't just tell him it wasn't his fault, because he wasn't saying it was.  Saying it wasn't Steve's fault would make it _more_ the Soldier's fault, not less, and that wouldn't help anyone.  She changed the subject instead, keeping her voice light and jovial.  "Wow, Barnes.  Drinking alone on your birthday."

The Soldier shrugged.  "Not the first time.  And I thought you were going to call me 'James,' Romanoff."

"I was."  She wasn't sure if he knew her name because of who she was now, or who she'd been the first time.  But she'd spent the last few weeks trying to come to grips with being a little bit of both, so she tried not to wonder too hard.

"And now you've switched to 'Barnes.'"

"And now I've switched to ordering drinks.  Back in a minute."

She could have called the bartender over, but she wanted a moment to level her head.  And a moment of head-leveling might not hurt James, either.

By the time she came back with a bottle of vodka and two glasses, she'd figured out what she wanted out of this conversation.  She wasn't ready to go back east yet, but one day she would be, and she wanted answers for Steve if he hadn't found Bucky by then.  She already knew she wouldn't be calling Steve to tell him Barnes was here, but she couldn't just leave him here without getting a few answers.

"Vodka?" he asked, eyebrow raised again.

"I figured having our whole conversation in Russian was some kind of hint," she said with a shrug.  "And I like vodka."

James snorted, pouring himself a glass.  "I know you do.  Natalia Alianovna Romanoff.  KGB agent.  Well trained, follows orders.  Likes vodka, but doesn't drink on the job.  Acceptable collateral damage, but not a target.  Maybe I should have killed you after all."  It was a joke, again.  Everything was a joke, which was as good a mask as any for whatever his real emotions were.  But she could work with that.  Black humor worked for her.

"And then you'd be drinking alone on your 97th birthday and _that_ would be depressing," she answered cheerfully, filling her own glass and clinking it against his. 

"I drank alone on my 21st," the Soldier supplied, surprising her a little, " _That_ was depressing."  It was a joke, but - not a joke.  Something in his voice was looser.  Like she'd passed a test or something.  Or maybe like he was starting to test her.  There was an edge to his voice that probably wasn't sadness.  Interesting.

Nat wrinkled her forehead, doing the math in her head.  "In 1939?  But I thought you joined the army after-"

"After the war started," James finished, "I did."  He took a drink, but he wasn't closing off.  If he'd decided to trust her, she'd take it.  Even if he hadn't, she'd take it.  He knew her from before.  He knew her from one of his missions.  And if they both knew Steve, too, then it was because they both had a layer of maybe-something-else in addition to what they'd been before.  Whatever this test was, she was pretty sure she could pass it.

Nat took a sip of her vodka, raising an eyebrow at the man.  "And here Steve had us all thinking the two of you were inseparable until the day you shipped out.  Where were you in 1939?"

"Fort Bliss," he answered, "Building a fire house with the WPA.  That's the-"

"Works Progress Administration," she finished for him.  "I know.  I read up on American history when I got here."

" _American history_ ," he repeated, sounding disgusted.  "I need a drink.  But it was the 'Work Projects Administration' when I was in it.  Had just been renamed."

"Conveniently, you already _have_ a drink," she joked, lightly.  He raised an eyebrow and drank from it again, holding her eyes the entire time.  It was part of the joke.  Hers or his own or maybe both.  She wasn't sure if it was part of the test or not.  He was really loosening up, now, like he thought he might be able to be a person with her.  She must be doing well. 

"Where was Steve when you were building fire houses?" she asked, "I've read his file, too, and construction work was definitely not in it."

"New York," he answered, putting his glass back down.  "Making posters for the Federal Art Project.  He and I went into the WPA at the same time, but different skill sets meant different jobs in different places.  In the end, I couldn't keep it up.  Ended up missing that stupid little hooligan too much.  He got pneumonia a couple months later and I dumped the job and went back north to look after him.  Probably stupid, 'cause I hadn't been able to get work without the WPA, but he needed me.  I just acted on the impulse, at the time.  Anyway, Hitler invaded Poland a couple months after that, and even though we weren't going to war yet, production picked up and he and I came out of it alright."

Nat smiled.  "Hooligan, huh?  Not sure I've ever heard that one applied to Steve."

James laughed again, the sound still barking out like it was a surprise, but sounding happier this time.  Something in his eyes sparkled for a second and she found herself smiling at _him_ as much as she was smiling at the thought of Steve being a 'stupid little hooligan.'

"Used to be the go-to word for him," James said warmly, shoulders moving just slightly back so that he was hunched over a little less.  "That idiot was always getting into fights in back alleys and chasing guys twice his size like he thought he could actually kick their asses."

"And he couldn't?"

James laughed again, and this time it sounded almost like real laughter.  He turned a little on his stool to look at her, shoulders losing the last of the hunch as he did.  "Not everybody pint-sized fights as well as you.  He thought he could do more than he could.  But he had me to back him up, when I could find him.  And he'd get in a couple good blows with a trash can lid sometimes, even if he couldn't get close enough to a guy to punch him."

He'd been happy for a moment, remembering.  He'd even almost smiled, a flickering in the muscles around his mouth like they weren't sure what they were supposed to be doing.  But then something in his face started shifting again, and she thought it might be better to keep him talking before the nostalgia made him sad again.  "But he wasn't getting in fights on your 21st birthday?" she prompted.

James rolled his eyes.  "Oh, he probably was.  I just wasn't there to see it."

Nat turned sideways on the stool and crossed her legs, leaning her left elbow on the bar as she waved the drink in her right hand in his direction.  "So why'd you go drinking alone?  You warmed up to this little party ok, and I'm almost a stranger.  Didn't you have any firehouse-building buddies to celebrate hitting the drinking age with?"

The Soldier shrugged his metal shoulder.  "Nah.  It was my first birthday without Steve since we were in primary school together, and anyway 21 was only the drinking age in Texas.  It was 18 in New York and Steve and I celebrated _that_ birthday together, so I didn't want to rewrite the memory with another party.  I didn't even tell 'em it was my birthday.  Pretended it was just a day.  I hadn't been sober since maybe the October before that, anyway.  Nothing better to do on the road without Steve."

He went back to drinking for a moment, not quite meeting her eyes.  She wondered if he'd maybe said more than he meant to.  His shoulders weren't hunched, but they were turned away from her, now.  He was closing off again.

"Well," she asked, trying to sound reasonable and non-pushy.  She needed to keep him in this conversation.  She still didn't have any answers for Steve, if she saw him again.  "You got anything better to do now?"

"Better than going back and making Steve face what I've turned into?" James asked, eyebrow raised.  He didn't turn his shoulders toward her, but he looked her in the eye, which was good enough.  "Not gonna happen," he said definitively, "It's better for him to keep holding onto what I used to be.  As long as he's looking, he can pretend I'm still Bucky and I don't have to bust his heart up.  He's the closest thing I ever had to a brother and I'm not gonna hurt him like that."

Nat nodded, "Yeah, I get that.  You look back at all the red in your ledger and you think maybe it's better to be around people who don't know.  But - they _always_ know, even if they think they don't.  I think sometimes they can just look at you and they know, somewhere in their guts, even if their brains don't.  Not sure there's any use hiding it.  And anyway, Steve's read your file.  He _really_ knows what you've done.  And he's looking for you anyway."

"He _doesn't_ really know," James sounded angry, now, and Nat tightened her core, ready to move quickly if she had to.  She didn't think he would get violent, because the anger seemed to be directed at the wall on the other side of the bar, at the moment.  But it was better to be prepared.  "He only _thinks_ he knows.  'Cause it's 2014 and he's still that same little dumbass hooligan picking fights he can't win.  Only, you know, with his emotions or something."

"You haven't seen the way he looks when he talks about finding you," Nat answered back stubbornly, "And you didn't see the way he looked when he figured out the Winter Soldier was you.  He'll forgive you."

"He _thinks_ he'll forgive me," James said again, still not budging.

"And it's _true_ ," Nat said, "Because he knows your history, now, and he still hasn't given up on you.  And because he trusts me.  _Me_.  Even knowing - well, I guess when he said that, he knew _half_ my past.  But he didn't turn on me when I let loose the rest of it.  And he won't turn on you."

"So why are _you_ hiding from him, Natalia Alianovna?"  James's voice was bitter, but the anger had faded out of it a little.  He sounded sadder, instead.

"Because sometimes I give better advice to other people than I do to myself, James Buchanan," she said haughtily, "It's one of my very few flaws."

"Well, Natalia," he said, turning toward her again, but this time moving past her like he was about to get up.  "Maybe you should listen to your own advice, then.  I'm going to keep protecting Steve.  Same as I always did.  I made him a promise when we were kids and now that he broke the dam in my head and it's all coming back, I gotta follow through with it.  There's no going back.  _I_ know that, and _you_ know that, and Steve _pretends_ to know it, but he doesn't.  That doesn't mean I have to make him face it."

"He'll have to face it eventually," she answered quietly.

"Well, then you'd better go get him ready to face it.  'Cause I won't come back until he's ready.  And 'cause you listen like somebody who cares about Steve.  'S the only reason I kept talking." James rose effortlessly from the barstool, smiling for the first time.  It was genuine, if small, and it was one of the most beautiful things she'd ever seen, completely reshaping his face so that for a moment she could see the handsome womanizer Steve had described to her once.  She could imagine girls melting over that face, before it clouded over again.

"It was nice to meet you without having to shoot you, Natalia Alianovna Romanoff."  The smile was gone, but something around his eyes was softer than she'd ever seen them. "But you won't see me again until Steve does.  So take care of him.  I may not be his old best friend anymore, but that doesn't mean he stopped being mine.  And maybe listen to your own advice, yeah?"

She watched him walk away, half wishing she could make him stay.  But it was better this way.  She still had a lot of past to hash out and a lot of future to build.  Barnes was right.  They couldn't go back.  She'd re-read her foundations, and she just had to build on them now.  It was time to move on.  And time to leave Vegas, in case Steve came looking for Bucky.  One chance meeting was enough.  And however Barnes was dealing with what he'd called a broken dam in his head, it seemed to be working.  Maybe Steve wasn't so wrong after all.  Maybe Bucky could heal enough to come back to him.  Maybe they all could.

* * *

_Cause you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable,_

_And life's like an hourglass, glued to the table._

_No one can find the rewind button, boys,_

_So cradle your head in your hands,_

_And breathe... just breathe,_

_Oh breathe, just breathe_


	3. Just As Far In As You'll Ever Be Out - Clint Barton

_There's a light at each end of this tunnel,_

_You shout 'cause you're just as far in as you'll ever be out_

_And these mistakes you've made, you'll just make them again_

_If you'd only try turning around._

* * *

Nat was in Iowa, of all places, when Clint found her. She'd been drifting steadily closer to DC, but she wasn't ready to go home yet.  It was one thing to find herself and another entirely to reveal herself to her friends. If they hadn't always liked the person she was before, she could put it down to an imperfect alias. But now... now whatever was left was just _her_ and it made her feel vulnerable.  And she only liked feeling vulnerable when she knew she could control it. 

When the carnival rolled into town, she thought about Clint, and she kept away from the side of town where it had set up. It wasn't a large town, and there wasn't much getting away from the carnival in it without packing up and flat-out leaving, but she wasn't ready to do that, yet.  It would feel like running.  And Nat was done running.  She was going to be in charge of her own destiny, now.  And she was going to start it when she got back to New York. Whenever she felt ready for that. She hated herself for being so hesitant, but going back home was the last hurdle, and it was bigger than she'd thought it would be.

The crappy diner on the other end of town was everything the clichés said it should be.  It had cracked black-and-white tiles on the floor, checkerboarded up against ripped bench seats and metal-edged tables.  She might have expected it to be red, but instead, everything was a mildly unpleasant shade of bright purple that matched the high school football jerseys on the walls.

Clint was wearing the same shade of purple across his shoulders as he slid into the bench across from her, looking every bit the carnie and not at all like the agent she'd spent so many years working beside.  "You order yet?" he asked, like they'd meant to meet here.  She shook her head, not sure how to react, yet. What was Clint doing here? She'd thought of him when she saw the carnival, but she hadn't expected him to actually be _in_ it.  Clint joining the circus again had been a joke when Maria said it, and it had been a joke when she remembered it, even if she had adjusted for the possibility anyway.  And now here he was.  What did it mean?

Clint grinned, leaning back in his seat and propping a leg up casually on the bench seat next to her, leg stretched across the space under the table. "Perfect. We should get two kinds of milkshakes and trade 'em around.  Now that we're not trying to be in fighting shape all the time."

Nat raised an eyebrow.  "And that stopped you before?"  She wanted to ask if they weren't trying to be in fighting shape anyway.  She knew she'd never stop trying to be in fighting shape.  It was who she was.  But that was too close to something real, and if Clint was going to let her have a little time in the shallows first, she was going to take it.

Clint put his arms behind his head casually. "Well, you know me. Anything with chocolate in it and I'm happy."

Nat smirked.  " _Do_ I know you? I've met Iron Man and Captain America, but I think I'd remember it if I'd ever seen  _that_ atrocity of a costume before."

Clint laughed, the thin blue and purple fabric of his suit shimmering over his chest and stomach as it moved. "If you think this is bad, you should see it with the mask!" 

The waitress came over and took their orders. Nat ordered an oreo milkshake with the full intention of stealing at least a few bites of Clint's chocolate one. She hadn't meant to meet up with him again just yet, but there were advantages to their familiar routines. And she _had_ missed him.  She'd thought about him a lot, and she'd held on to the arrow necklace that she hadn't meant to let him know about. And now here he was, sitting across from her while she wore it.

"You know," he said, more serious once the waitress had come and gone,  "You're a hard woman to find, Nat.  You might have told the politicians at your hearing that they'd know where to find you, but the truth is, _nobody_ did."

"Maria Hill figured it out," she answered, "And I met the Winter Soldier in Vegas."

Clint's foot slid off the seat beside her as he leaned forward, hitting the ground with an audible, surprised-sounding thump. "Damn, really? D'you kick his ass?"

She shrugged.  "Nah.  It was his birthday.  I bought him a drink."

He raised an eyebrow, leaning forward to lay his arms on the table in front of him.  "Steve know?"

She shook her head.  "Haven't spoken to Steve.  And I figured, that's his hunt, not mine.  James doesn't want to be found."

Clint's eyebrow darted just a fraction higher. "James?"

Nat kicked him lightly in the knee, almost more of a nudge.  "Yeah. You can't celebrate a guy's birthday and keep calling him 'The Winter Soldier.'  That would be ridiculous."

"And what did he call _you_?" Clint asked.

"Natalia Alianovna Romanoff," she said airily, "The whole thing.  Got it off the file they gave him that time he shot me."

Clint laughed, "'Course he did. You know, it's a hell of a business we're in, Nat."

Nat grinned cheekily, "It's a hell of a business _I'm_ in.  _You_ ran off with the carnival.  Unless you've taken to wearing spandex for kicks."

Clint wrinkled his nose, "Yeah, funny story about that. Turns out it's harder to pay for traveling expenses when you don't have a job."

"There's always hitchhiking," Nat suggested.

Clint shrugged, "Carnival's got medical insurance."

It was Nat's turn to raise an eyebrow, "Really?"

"It was a step down in coverage," Clint admitted, "But I _do_ get shot at less."

"Do you?" she asked, skeptically.

"Yeah," he answered, "I'm the only one doing the shooting these days.  Everybody else just watches."

"It _is_ nice not getting shot at," she said absently.

"It's boring, is what it is," Clint answered.

"That too," she agreed.

"So," Clint said confidently, "When are you coming back to New York to talk Pepper into talking Tony into restarting the Avengers Initiative?"

"Who says I _am_?" Nat asked defensively. She was.  But it had taken her months to figure out what she wanted for her future, and she resented Clint acting like he'd known how it would turn out all along.

"Nat," he said gently, "It's who you are.  I know it's who the world made you, too, but it's still who you are.  You and me, both.  We can't sit still. We can't not try to make things better. Being a hero was always the light at the end of your tunnel.  You were gonna do it one way or another."

"Hero, huh?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. She wasn't sure she'd ever been willing to go that far.  Fighter, yes. Avenger, yes.  Hero?  She'd never been sure.  But now that Clint said it - maybe.

He shrugged, "Maybe a villain. Thought you might turn out a villain, once or twice.  But villains are just heroes for the other side anyway, aren't they?  Better to come back with us.  You _like_ us."

She grinned, reaching across the table to shove Clint in the shoulder.  "I _put up_ with you."

"You know that's a lie, Miss Arrow Necklace," he said, grinning like the cat that ate the canary. "You missed me."

Nat leaned forward, grinning back, and poked Clint in the chest.  "You know, Barton, I've _seen_ pictures of you in your carnie days.  Didn't that blue hourglass between your suspenders used to be a square?"

Clint shrugged, leaning back into the bench with a smug smile. "You can't prove that has anything to do with Black Widow spiders."

She laughed, "And _you_ can't prove the arrow wasn't just on a nice chain."

"You put up with Tony, though," Clint admitted, changing the subject back abruptly.  She wasn't really surprised.  It was what he'd walked in here to talk about.  It was what he'd travelled across the country looking for her to talk about. "I know you never liked him all that much."

"Yeah, well, my first undercover stint with him was a little different than meeting on the helicarrier," she said, wrinkling her nose. Tony had gotten better now that he and Pepper were really dating and really in love.  But she wasn't sure she'd ever quite let go of that first impression.  "He's got money, though."

Clint nodded, "And if we can get him to fund us, I can ditch the spandex and we can get back to doing what we do best."

Nat sighed.  "And what if it's a mistake again, Clint?  SHIELD turned out to be HYDRA, and Tony's no Nick Fury. What if he gets us started again and then pulls us off with him to drift into... whatever. He's not the most reliable. He changes his mind a lot."

Clint shrugged.  "Yeah, but he changes it for the better. Like us."

"I'm not sure I can do it again, Clint," she admitted, "I should.  It's who I am.  It's what I want. But if it's wrong again, I don't know if I can make it through another _this_." She waved her hand vaguely at their surroundings.

"Yeah," Clint said gently, "I know. But what else are you going to go back to?  All the way back to the KGB? Back to assassinating people and making me take you out?  You're just as far into this life as you'll ever be out of it.  There's no letting go, anymore.  If all you do is turn around and go back, that's when you'll make a mistake.  Going forward is... well, it's at least _better_ , isn't it?"

"It's still a risk, Clint. You know it is. And not the kind I like taking."

He reached out and took her hand. "Take it anyway. You're not the only one who's made a mistake.  After all, I recruited you to SHIELD.  We made that mistake together, in case you've forgotten.  We'll make the next one together, too.  And then maybe you won't ditch me if it's another _this_."

She smiled weakly, "Yeah, well, maybe I won't."

Clint nodded, "Anyway, the Avengers Initiative won't have me in the middle of nowhere when things to go hell. Maybe I won't give you a choice."

Nat raised an eyebrow, "Oh, I _always_ have a _choice_."

"Ok, so choose not to ditch me." It was part ultimatum, part pleading, and Nat had known since the moment he walked in the door to the diner that it was coming. She'd also known she was going to agree.

"And leave you to the sad Spandex life of a carnie?" she answered, "I'm not _heartless_."

Clint grinned brilliantly.  "Come to my last show, then.  We can leave afterward."

"I thought you didn't have the money to travel?" she joked.

"Well, there's always hitchhiking," he answered.

She paid for his cheeseburger before they left lunch.  They both knew it was an apology.  They also both knew she'd never say it out loud. She didn't need to.


	4. I Feel Like I'm Naked In Front Of The Crowd - Steve Rogers

_2 AM and I'm still awake, writing a song_

_If I get it all down on paper, it's no longer inside of me,_

_Threatening the life it belongs to_

_And I feel like I'm naked in front of the crowd_

_Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud_

_And I know that you'll use them however you want to_

* * *

The Avengers had taken less time to reassemble than they'd taken to assemble the first time.  Tony had made a sacrifice play, once.  Pepper made one this time, signing up for a life she'd never really wanted. But once she'd decided Tony should go back to hero work, it had happened.  Pepper was reliable that way.  Tony had talked Bruce into coming back, because they'd never lost contact, and because Nat had told him what to say.  Thor had been difficult to find, but not with Maria Hill in their corner, and he hadn't taken much convincing once an actual crisis appeared.  And after their first crisis, Jane discovered that she liked having access to the Stark Labs.  Thor liked Jane being happy.  They stayed.

Steve had been the most difficult to wrangle. Steve was hard to divert once he'd started doing something.  But eventually, he had come back without Bucky, because she'd told him Bucky was waiting for him to be ready.  He'd decided to prove he'd moved on, in the hopes that everything else would catch up. And it had.  James had shown up in Maria Hill's office, because he'd heard Stark Industries was where you could find a job, if you were former SHIELD, and because the SSR had to count, too, didn't it?  She'd sent him up to the Avengers floors without a word. Steve had smiled like his face might break in two.  He'd also, finally, forgiven Nat for not telling him where Bucky was earlier.  It felt good to be in Steve's good books again.

It wasn't the only thing that felt good. It felt good to be a hero again. To be active.  To be saving people.  When Fury said, years ago, that the world was opening up to new challenges, he'd been right.  When he'd said they would need the Avengers, he was right about that, too.  Nat wasn't sure she'd ever felt really, thoroughly _needed_ before.  That was the best thing of all about this new life.

And the worst thing was everybody knowing about it.

The first time the Avengers had saved the world, they'd vanished immediately afterwards.  The second time they'd done it, they'd stuck around. And the second time they'd done it, they'd been familiar names and faces to begin with.  People had looked them up online, had pored through the old SHIELD files, had written articles and told stories and sent paparazzi for Tony to shut out of the tower.  She'd figured out who she was, and now she was being tried by fire. Every day she didn't burn away felt like a miracle.

It was 2 AM when it started to rain, and Nat sighed, throwing her head back so that the water fell on her face. She was sitting at the edge of the tower's roof, beneath the lights Tony had put up to guide him and the suit in for landings, as bright as the streetlights that lit the street beneath her. One leg was tucked under her body, and the other was dangling over the edge of the roof, swinging slightly back and forth. She closed her eyes, letting the water soak in to her eyelids.  A grunt behind her was Steve moving, and she was comfortable enough with him, now, to ignore it.  When the water stopped, replaced by a pattering noise, she opened her eyes to see a big black umbrella open over her head.

Steve liked it on the roof as much as she did. It was quiet.  Private.  And they both knew how to leave it that way, even when they were up here at the same time. Which was more than you could say for the bulk of their teammates.  Steve sat down beside her and put his sketchbook in his lap, holding the umbrella over them both.

She leaned into his side for a moment, then sat back upright again.  He nudged her back, more briefly.  "What are you thinking about, Nat?"  She'd asked them all to stop using 'Tasha' as a nickname.  The media used both her names, but mostly called her the Widow. Her friends called her 'Nat.' It was the way she wanted it. She'd never had a name she _wanted_ before. It was a good feeling.

"I don't know how you did it, Rogers," she answered, "This spotlight thing.  All those old movies and comics and trading cards, and you never lost yourself."

Steve laughed.  It was light and casual and it didn't try to hide its undercurrent of sadness, "Oh, I lost myself plenty.  It just wasn't the spotlight that did it.  Or not _only_ the spotlight."

"D'you know, I went to see Peggy Carter in the hospital, once?" Nat asked, "It was while we were still trying to get you to leave the search for Bucky and come back to us."

"Hmm?" Steve prompted, encouragingly. She'd been worried that he might think she was overstepping.  The reassurance was good.

"She showed me that monkey drawing you made before you went to rescue the 107th.  The one on the high wire."

Steve laughed, the usual sadness creeping in, as it always did when he was thinking about Peggy.  "I can't believe she kept that.  I almost wish she hadn't.  I'm not sure that's how I'd want her to remember me.  But it's different.  That was - this isn't all smoke and mirrors, you know.  We're out here, and we're doing things.  For real.  Things that count. And the fundraisers and the patriotic spirit and all of that counted, but not the same way.  This is deeper.  This is lives we're saving.  We're not encouraging other people to save lives.  We're doing it ourselves. They can put us on billboards and make us turn down a dozen TV interviews a day.  It doesn't change what we're doing.  And it doesn't make it less important."

"Hmm," Nat acknowledged, "That's true."

Steve laughed.  "There's a 'but' coming.  You're worse than Sharon."

Nat snorted, "That's because Sharon's more _practical_ than you are.  And there _is_ a 'but.'  It's that it's hard to know who I am, anymore, with all those people talking. I finally figured it out, I finally _knew_ , and the harder they look, the more I start to wonder again."

"Mmm," Steve hummed, assenting. They sat in silence for a while, rain pounding on their umbrella.  Their legs, dangling over the edge of the roof, were soaked. Nat adjusted her dry leg, leaving it folded underneath her, and pulled her damp leg up to match it. "Criss-cross applesauce," Tony had said, when he invited a kindergarten class up to the top of the tower to meet them.  It had been an awkward experience, and one that they weren't sure they were going to repeat. But it hadn't been all bad, either. Some of the kids had admired her.

Finally, Steve spoke again.  "Open the sketchbook."

Raising an eyebrow, Nat picked the book up off of Steve's lap and opened it.  Inside were small sketches of all of their friends.  Thor with his hair tied up in one of his ridiculous ponytails. James with his hair tied up to match. Bruce with a cup of tea. Clint asleep against the wall at the top of the stairs.  Herself on the roof. Jane yelling at Tony in the lab. But alongside the pictures of their team and their friends were a whole lot more pictures she didn't recognize.

Steve pointed to a man with messy hair and glasses. "Erskine. Made the serum." The same page had a skyline she didn't recognize, but instead of explaining it, Steve pointed to the architectural drawing he'd done beside it.  "My apartment building in Brooklyn. The one Bucky - _James_ \- and I grew up in."  He wasn't as good about remembering James's new name as he was hers, but he kept trying.

Nat turned the page.  "That's Peggy, isn't it?" she asked, "When you were young."

Steve nodded.  "And Howard Stark.  Sometimes I look at Tony and it's just uncanny, but other times I look at him and it's like it's not there at all.  I wish I'd met his mom.  To hear Peggy talk about Maria Stark, her death was a bigger tragedy than Howard's." He pointed to a set of faces further down the page.  "The Howling Commandos. I don't think any of them are still alive. If they are, I never found them."

Steve turned the page this time. "And these are the neighbors down the street.  My boss when I was a delivery boy, before the SSR.  Mrs. Barnes. My mom."

"You remember them all that well?" she asked, amazed.

"Part of the serum.  Things used to get fuzzy.  But even the fuzzy stuff un-fuzzed after the serum.  And new memories were crisper.  I'd look at a map for a minute, and there it'd be in my head. Or less than a minute, sometimes. It's convenient when you're going after secret HYDRA bases."

"Hmm," Nat answered, running her fingers over the drawings in front of her, "Less convenient when you're 97, though, I'd imagine.  Remembering people you can't see again."

Steve leaned back for a moment, closing his eyes. His hand was propped behind him, now, holding him up, instead of lingering by the sketchbook.  "Better than not remembering at all," he answered, "I'm glad Pierce blew up Zola.  And I'm glad Fury shot Pierce.  Saved me having to do it, for what they did to James."

"Did you draw _that_?" Nat asked, morbid curiosity coming over her.

"I draw everything. But some of it, I burn. I just have to get it out of my head first."

Nat nodded, "Maybe I'll start writing a diary.  Get it all out."

Steve opened his eyes again, looking over at her. "You should. Get it all down on paper so it stops being inside you.  It doesn't fester, that way. And you don't get lost in it."

Nat looked down at her hands for a moment. "I guess it's just not a threat when it's like that, is it?  Because paper burns."

Steve sighed.  "It burns or it doesn't.  It's just a _thing_ instead of an idea.  And people look or they don't.  You feel kind of naked sometimes, not keeping it all in.  Naked in front of a crowd, if you leave it somewhere you didn't mean to, and you think somebody might look."

"Yeah, but you showed it to _me_."  Nat said, "This part, anyway."

Steve shook his head.  "That's not the point.  You needed to know how I hold it together.  Those other folks, they'll want to see who I am. And you never quite get that outside of yourself anyway.  You just get a chance to look at it in pieces."

"And that helps?" she asked.

"Helps me," he answered.

"Hmm," she replied, thinking about it

Suddenly, Steve laughed.  "'Course you could take the route Tony did before he settled down.  Talk about feeling naked in front of the world!  I should _not_ have googled him before I learned how to use the safesearch.  But he never loses himself."

"Not _never_ ," Nat reminded him.

"No," he agreed, "Not never. Just not for a while, I guess. But at some point we've all gotta figure out how to be.  And those people out there, they'll use what we show them of us however they want to use it. But it doesn't make it who we are. Tony's not even that guy anymore. And if I'm still the guy I used to be, it's only 'cause I got lucky.  But I doubt I am."

"I'm Nat Mark 3," Nat answered, "I might have everybody beat for changing."

Steve shrugged, "And I'm Steve Rogers Mark 3. Clint's Hawkeye Mark 3. Tony's - well, Tony's something, but he's not just Tony Stark anymore, and he's not Iron Man the same way he used to be. I think we could call this Bruce's third life.  But maybe you beat Thor. 

"Maybe," Nat said.  It felt good to know they'd all started over. It felt good to know they'd all started over together, too.  "And maybe I'll let you read my diary someday."

Steve laughed.  "I haven't even read your SHIELD files. Felt like prying."

"Well, maybe one day I'll be ready for people to pry."

Steve nudged her shoulder affectionately. "Maybe you will."

Nat got up and went downstairs, saying a quiet good night to Steve that the super soldier returned just as quietly. The rest of the team was asleep, but Jarvis greeted her softly and asked if she needed anything to warm up after the rain.  She told him she was fine. And she meant it.

Nat started her diary in a marbled composition notebook she'd filched from the lab downstairs.  Its first entry was a list of the facts about herself that she considered to be most fundamental.  As she closed its covers and hid it behind her bed, she thought that one day, she might publish it.  When she was old. When she retired. When this Avengers thing got passed to someone else.

It was nice to think she might be someone solid enough to publish herself, and not just in a stream of data half written by somebody else.  It was nice to think she might make this time, this _her_ stick.

She hadn't felt that way in a very long time.

She laid back in her bed, turning the lights out with a word to Jarvis, and fell asleep just breathing.

* * *

_But you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable,_

_And life's like an hourglass, glued to the table_

_No one can find the rewind button now_

_Sing it if you understand._

 

_And breathe, just breathe_

_Woah breathe, just breathe,_

_Oh breathe, just breathe,_

_Oh breathe, just breathe._


End file.
